San Antonio, Texas. ART Magazine.
Funny Hat by Lance Letscher was included to the McNay Museum of Art’s permanent collection in 2009. Lance Letscher, born in Austin, Texas, received his BFA and MFA from the University of Texas in Austin, where he taught sculpture while he completed his Masters. Letscher has exhibited throughout the United States, Germany, England, and in Barcelona and his work is in several permanent collections including the McNay Museum of Art. His piece, Funny Hat consists of a collage piece of vintage images, text, and patterns arranged in a rhythmic composition of varying size and color pattern of boxes. This work is very representative of the style he is known for. The artist works with found content on paper to produce geometric compositions where pattern, form, and color are the main subject.
When Letscher was young, he used to help his grandparents clean their vacated rental properties developing a curious habit of imagining people’s stories from what they left behind. The nostalgia of his childhood and the intriguing concept of recreating a story out of the clues left behind triggered his artistic exploration within collage and found materials. The artist is often criticized for the lack of concept, depth, and intentionality behind his work. Even though he admits a fascination with Hannah Hoch, his work is far from the political commentary that Hoch made in her collages. However, Letcher’s work does flirt with Dadaism in the creation of a nonsense assemblage of the found material into esthetically pleasing compositions. Letscher takes a vintage book, image, or album cover, and strips it away from its original meaning putting it into an esthetic realm to become a frivolous color or shape. The artist heavily relies on the aura of his material to trigger a meaning on the viewer’s mind that is juxtaposed by the strong formal qualities expressed in the work.
Lance Letscher, Funny Hat, 2009. Collage on panel. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Museum purchase with funds from the McNay Contemporary Collectors Forum, 2009.102.
